Regarding DTCL's frequent attitude toward two certain HP characters

[star-dragon5.livejournal.com]

You're all familiar with the Draco in Leather Pants and Ron the Death Eater tropes, right?

After seeing the way some--not all--members of this comm treat Snape and Dumbledore, I'm seriously tempted to rename the tropes "Severus in Leather Pants" and "Albus the Death Eater."

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, but I joined DTCL under the impression it was about analyzing the more problematic parts of the HP books, not about glorifying characters you like/bashing characters you don't like. It looks like I was wrong.

Comments

[chicory-fics.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm a little confused. I read the previous entry and didn't see anything outrageous there--people discussed their interpretations of both Snape and Dumbledore quite neutrally. And those interpretations varied from Snape basically being "a creepy stalker" to being "an embittered asshole who still did good things".

The problem with literature--or any story medium--is that it is open to interpretations and there will be as many interpretations as there are people who have read it. For example, one girl in my middle school fancied Snape to be a hot emo-rocker and was quite disappointed with his actor in the movies.

Within Harry Potter this problem is, well, quite exacerbated because Rowling honestly isn't that good of an author. What she told and what she showed was usually starkly different. Harry Potter is also the series where the only moral code was that what matters is the person doing the doing rather than what is being done.

That is why her "good characters" could be as petty, horrible, cheating, manipulative and sadistic as they wanted to be and still be special little downtrodden snowflakes whose ultimate power was the "power of love".

But that, again, really is just my opinion of the books.